Egyptian opposition figure Aboul-Fotouh may die in jail: Rights group

An Egyptian human rights group has warned that prominent opposition figure and former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul-Fotouh may die in prison due to medical negligence.

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies said in a statement released on Thursday that Egyptian authorities are deliberately denying the 68-year-old leader of the centrist Strong Egypt Party “direly-needed healthcare” for his chronic illnesses.

The statement added that the veteran politician was facing “imminent death.”

Aboul-Fotouh was arrested on February 14, 2018, following a damning interview he gave to Qatar-based al-Jazeera news television network, in which he criticized Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the “environment of fear” surrounding the run-up to the presidential elections, which were held between March 26 and 28 that year.

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In the interview, Aboul-Fotouh condemned Sisi's crackdown on the opposition and said then presidential elections were not fair, transparent, or "democratic," especially with the absence of real opposition.

“A boycott of this mockery is a duty, in our opinion, because we don't accept for Egyptians to participate in a farce," he said. “I didn’t nominate myself as a candidate because there are no real elections happening in the first place.”

“I had hoped for the situation to change, for the state of emergency to end, and for political freedoms to return, but we have been faced with political candidates being pressured into stepping down and their lives being threatened.

“There is no real candidate [in the Egyptian elections] apart from the current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Where’s the opposition? Even the opposition they provided five minutes before the deadline for candidate registration, he’s a supporter of Sisi. So there’s no real opposition, therefore this is not a real election,” Aboul-Fotouh commented.

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Morsi was Egypt’s first democratically-elected president after the 2011 revolution.

The news comes more than two weeks after the death of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, who collapsed while attending his trial in Cairo.

Morsi collapsed in a defendants' cage in the courtroom and was pronounced dead in hospital at 4:50 p.m. local time (0250 GMT) on June 18. A medical report showed no apparent recent injuries on his body, the prosecutor said.

Human Rights Watch called Morsi's death "terrible" but "entirely predictable," criticizing the Egyptian government for its "failure to allow him adequate medical care.”

There have been various reports over the years that Morsi had been mistreated and tortured in jail. Human rights activists maintain that his death should be seen in context of Egyptian authorities' systematic isolation and mistreatment of political detainees.

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